Here are the latest COVID-19 updates from Japan and beyond:
<July 1,2022>
- Japan's government on Friday eased its travel warning over the coronavirus pandemic for 34 countries, including China, South Korea and India, and is no longer requesting that residents in Japan refrain from nonessential trips to those nations.
- North Korea on Friday claimed the cause of the country's COVID-19 outbreak, saying people who had touched "alien things" near the border with South Korea had been first infected with the novel coronavirus.
- The average land price in Japan as of Jan. 1 was up 0.5 percent from a year earlier, the National Tax Agency said Friday, rebounding from a fall in 2021 as the country recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.
<June 30,2022>
- The Tokyo metropolitan government raised its COVID-19 alert to the second-highest of four levels Thursday amid a continuous rise in coronavirus infections for two consecutive weeks.
- A Japanese court dismissed Thursday a damages lawsuit arguing the government's blanket exclusion of the sex industry from a cash handout program for pandemic-hit small companies violates the right to equality guaranteed under the Constitution.
- With China sticking to its radical "zero-COVID" policy, citizens in Beijing are worried that a window may suddenly pop up on the smartphone app designed for the Communist-led government to collect personal health information.
<June 29, 2022>
- Flights between the capitals of South Korea and Japan resumed Wednesday after being suspended for more than two years due to the coronavirus pandemic.
<June 27, 2022>
- More than a month has passed since the Japanese government relaxed its guidance on mask usage to reflect subsiding fears of the coronavirus, yet its call for removing masks whenever possible has not caught on widely among the public.
<June 22, 2022>
- U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. on Wednesday applied to Japan's health ministry for approval of its COVID-19 booster shots for children aged 5 to 11.
- The pandemic fund being prepared by the Group of 20 major economies to deal with future pandemics may start operating by the end of this month, the forum's current chair Indonesia said Tuesday after its gathering in Yogyakarta, an ancient city in central Java.
Japan and beyond: Week in Photos - June 25~July 1
Useful resources for foreign residents and visitors in Japan
- Health ministry call center
COVID-19: 0120-565-653 (toll free)
COVID-19 Vaccines: 0120-761-770 (toll free)
-Interpreters available for English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; for Thai 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; for Vietnamese 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. - Health ministry's COVID-19 Vaccine Navigation website
https://v-sys.mhlw.go.jp/en/ - AMDA Medical Information Center's "Multilingual Consultation Service"
- Available in Simple Japanese and English, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays. Also available in Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese on designated weekdays. Check schedule here.
03-6233-9266 - Tokyo Metropolitan Government's COVID-19 info
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/ - Tokyo Metropolitan Government hotline
https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/en/contacts
- Available in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. (including weekends and holidays)
0570-550571
- Available via fax for those with hearing impairments
03-5388-1396 - Japan National Tourism Organization's "Guide for when you are feeling ill"
- Multilingual clinic/hospital search available in English, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese
https://www.jnto.go.jp/emergency/eng/mi_guide.html - JNTO's "Japan Visitor Hotline"
https://www.japan.travel/en/plan/hotline/
- Available in English, Chinese, Korean and Japanese 24 hours a day
050-3816-2787
+81-50-3816-2787 (from overseas)